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Zephyrhills Really Digs Its History

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com

Published: March 18, 2009

ZEPHYRHILLS - The sides of the rectangular pit revealed a cross-section of earth: gray and lumpy on top, smooth yellow sand underneath.

What the pit didn't reveal was more important, though. It didn't show signs of the house that had stood for nearly 80 years at Seventh Avenue and Eighth Street on the edge of downtown.

"This pit tells us we didn't find what we were looking for and most of this site has been disturbed," said archaeologist Jeff Moates, who led his colleagues from the Florida Public Archaeology Network in a demonstration dig as part of Zephyrhills' annual Founders' Day festival.

Moates didn't let the lack of artifacts halt the project. They continued to dig, tossing shovelfuls of sand on sifting screens on the slim chance the sifted sand might give up an artifact.

Moates had hoped to find an edge of the foundation of the Burrows home, built in Zephyrhills in the 1920s. The city bought the property in 1999 and demolished the house to make way for a parking lot.

The remains of that demolition - bits of mortar, pieces of shingles, handfuls of nails - were the most obvious signs that something once stood where Moates had dug his straight-edged pit.

Zephryhills' founding as a retirement community for Civil War veterans means the older parts could yield historically relevant artifacts, Moates said.

"There's plenty of potential here," he said.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201. Keyword: Founders, for more photos.

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